Grocery Stores Use Amazing Surveillance Videos to Fight Against Bogus 'Slip and Falls'

What kind of people get up in the morning and decide to go to a supermarket, throw food or liquid on the floor and then pretend to slip, fall and fake-injure themselves in the mess they just made?

A lot of people, apparently. According to CBS News, 2010 may have been the biggest year ever for suspicious slip-and-falls. The Insurance Crime Bureau reports working on 469 cases during the first half of 2010, which would be a 50 percent increase over 2008.

CBS has a video report (shown below and also clickable on the CBS site) discussing the problem that also includes amazing/pathetic surveilance video of numerous people -- sometimes working with a partner -- blatantly placing items such as hot dogs, apple cider and olive oil on the floors of supermarkets so that they can immediately pretend to slip and fall. Happily, thanks to the video, many of these fakers not only do not recover for their bogus injuries but are also criminally prosecuted.

Perhaps the worst faker on the tapes is the 72-year-old woman who was found lying on her back in a grocery store aisle. Check the tape, though, and you see her and her caretaker standing in the aisle. Then the woman carefully smears some water around with her foot and, rather than risk a fall (those can hurt, you know), slowly descends to a seated position and finally lies down (while fixing her hair). CBS reports that both women were prosecuted and banned from the grocery store for life.

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Grocery Stores Use Amazing Surveillance Videos to Fight Against Bogus 'Slip and Falls'

What kind of people get up in the morning and decide to go to a supermarket, throw food or liquid on the floor and then pretend to slip, fall and fake-injure themselves in the mess they just made?

A lot of people, apparently. According to CBS News, 2010 may have been the biggest year ever for suspicious slip-and-falls. The Insurance Crime Bureau reports working on 469 cases during the first half of 2010, which would be a 50 percent increase over 2008.

CBS has a video report (shown below and also clickable on the CBS site) discussing the problem that also includes amazing/pathetic surveilance video of numerous people -- sometimes working with a partner -- blatantly placing items such as hot dogs, apple cider and olive oil on the floors of supermarkets so that they can immediately pretend to slip and fall. Happily, thanks to the video, many of these fakers not only do not recover for their bogus injuries but are also criminally prosecuted.

Perhaps the worst faker on the tapes is the 72-year-old woman who was found lying on her back in a grocery store aisle. Check the tape, though, and you see her and her caretaker standing in the aisle. Then the woman carefully smears some water around with her foot and, rather than risk a fall (those can hurt, you know), slowly descends to a seated position and finally lies down (while fixing her hair). CBS reports that both women were prosecuted and banned from the grocery store for life.